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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Promises to Invest US Budget on Blockchain
Independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Sunday that blockchain technology could play a key role in making government more transparent, calling for a Web3 restructuring of the federal budget.
“I intend to commit the entire American budget [the] blockchain, therefore […] every American can look at every budget item in the entire budget any time they want, 24 hours a day,” he said at a rally in Michigan, for The hill.
Facilitating daily payments on a publicly distributed ledger could make people in power more accountable, Kennedy suggested in a video shared on Twitter. In theory, anyone would be able to see how government spending occurs through what would likely be thousands upon thousands of transactions recorded every day.
“We’ll have 300 million eyes on our budget, and if someone spends $16,000 on a toilet seat, everyone will know about it,” Kennedy said, referring to a 2018 hustle haha about the Pentagon’s purchasing habits.
Kennedy’s latest comments continue his ongoing campaign to promote cryptocurrency technology as a path to improving the nation’s economy. Last July, for example, the White House hopeful proposed support the US dollar with Bitcoin reserves.
Kennedy’s admiration for Bitcoin was a central part of his campaign platform. He was a keynote speaker at Bitcoin 2023 in Miami and appeared most recently at ETHDenver, an annual Ethereum conference.
While a blockchain could empower citizens when it comes to government oversight, that same transparency could be used as a weapon against them, Kennedy acknowledged. Wary of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), the candidate described the technology as a slippery slope towards financial surveillance in the United States
By Ryan Ozawa.